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Harrison Ford, the 96 Ranger

So we used some of the settlement money from the Cabriolet being backed into, I just popped the dent out and bought a truck yesterday . We have been wanting one since we moved into a house. It’s a ‘96 Ford Ranger XLT, 166,xxx miles, 4 speed manual with overdrive, 2.3 4 cylinder, new tires and newer brakes.

It runs really good. It has a bunch of little oddball needs, missing center caps, various bad bulbs, has some body damage that I will work out later(not to worried about it it’s a house truck), carpet needs shampooing and I want to replace locks and ignition cylinder. Passenger side lock is bad and the ignition cylinder is a little wacky. But can’t really complain since it technically was a free truck. Only big thing I need to figure out is why the heater doesn’t get warm.

I took care of all but 2 off the burnt/missing bulb, got the fluids to the correct level, replaced a bad seat belt receiver, a couple missing interior trim pieces and changed the wiper blades last night. I found some replacement center caps this morning.

This isn’t a project vehicle, but i will be getting up to my standard for my vehicles, slowly but surely.

Looks like a nice little truck. We have talked about getting a truck for some of the projects, but have yet to do it.

We have wanted one since we moved into the house. So the settlement money gave us the perfect opportunity.

Changed the fuel filter, put the floor mats in and spent a few hours trying to figure out the heating issue. Eliminated pretty much everything. Changed the thermostat, checked that everything was operating normally in the heater box, flushed the heater core and still no heat.

Everything checked out, the thermostat was definitely stuck open, temperature gauge goes higher and quicker, but still no heat. In researching some people have had it turn out being the water pump. There is flow, but it could be at to low due to corroded vanes on the pump. Checked for signs of this and found a couple, so I ordered a water pump.

Changed the water pump and put a new radiator cap on. The old pump’s bearings definitely sound crunchy. Can kinda feel some warm in the air now, but still not warm. Used my thermo scanner to check hose temps, the in and out hoses for the heater core at the fire wall are 150-180, but it’s only blows 99-101 out the heat vents.

Sounds like the cold air flapper might be stuck open. Are these cable, vacuum, or electrically operated?

I checked everything already, pulled the blower motor out and watched the flapper move correctly. Blend door works too. I actually changed the fan clutch the other day too. Every tried putting cardboard in front of the radiator, it get to temp better, but still no heat.

Had a busy day yesterday, started off with changing both 02 sensors, they look like they are the original ones from 96.

While I had on jack stands I decided to put on the OEM mud flaps I got at pnp the other day.

Then the will fun began. It has to sets of plugs, so eight for four cylinders, each ran by a separate coil pack. The passenger side ones looked to be changed in the last 2-3 years. Then I got to the ones on the driver side ones. Three of them are under the upper intake manifold, you cant even see the wires hidden under there. I quickly figured out that I needed to just pull the upper intake manifold.
I discovered a lot of carbon build up in the intake manifold. So I got a complete gasket kit for the upper intake, a new egr valve and a new Pcv valve. So I started to pull the plugs and discovered that the three hidden under the intake manifold had never been changed! They were clearly the ones it left the factory with in 96. The front plug matched the ones on the other side, its easily accessible.

So I changed the plugs wires, egr valve and pcv valve. Then I pulled the icv off cleaned it and replaced the gasket. Moved onto the throttle body, it was gross, cleaned it the best I could and installed it with a fresh gasket. Reinstalled the upper intake manifold with a new gasket as well.

So I got an intake for it off eBay for only $70 new and I am actually impressed with the quality, definitely breaths better.
Old stock stuff
New one in, has a heat shield with thermal blanket on it.

Overall thing runs amazing now. Didnt realize how bad it was actually running, because I have no experience driving Ford Rangers. So I had nothing to compare it to. Last thing i did was installed an instant 20hp.

Been fighting a nasty bug for a couple of weeks, so none of the cars have got any attention. Finally have some energy again, so tackled some things yesterday.

First up was doing something about the lack of a tachometer, so weird driving a manual without one. Apparently only some Ford manuals came with them. But oddly almost every automatic did? Did some research and found out cluster swap options are pretty wide open on these. Anyone no matter what engine, Ranger or Explorer from the same time period fits. Just get one with the same color flexible circuit board and your good to go.

I ended up getting one from an Explorer, with close to the same miles. Only 1,9xx less then whats on the truck. So nice to be able to see whats going on.

Original

Now with tach!

Next I swapped the center dash surround, the 12v outlet was broken.

Then I did a bunch of small projects. Changed the door and ignition cylinders with a complete matching set. The original passenger side door lock had been damaged and the ignition cylinder was worn.

When I was putting the dash back together I replaced a bunch of missing screws and adjusted the fitment of everything. And replaced the bulb in the headlight switch, also fixed the mounting points for the switch.

Last project was getting the dome light to work. So after tearing the doors apart(discovered they have never been taken apart before, so much dirt and dust!), changing switches, doing electrical test, I was still stumped as to why it didnt work. So I decided to pull the assembly off the roof and bam it was something really stupid. There was a screw missing. There is three screws that mount it, each going through a circuit board, grounding the unit.

Did a quick project after work today. The head lights are less then stellar, I threw in some led bulbs a few weeks ago and they are definitely brighter, but are only slightly less douche then running drop in HID kits. I originally wanted to run Osram Night Breaker bulbs, but they dont make them for the truck. So I did some research and discovered that Nokya makes a plug and play relay set up
for it. It was only $25 so I bought one and some Nokya bulbs. Installed it when I came home, took 20 minutes. It is made really nice, still need to check them in the dark.

I may have missed it somewhere above but did you get the mystery heater issue solved?

Not really, it’s slightly “warmer”, but not hot. I bought a flush kit and got actual flush detergent(?) and going to try that. Other then that there is nothing left to try and everything has been checked(or replaced). If flushing it doesn’t do anything, eventually I might just change the heater core.

Got another quick project done today, installed a pull out cover for the extended cab area. It’s a factory option that it didn’t have, grabbed one for $10 at the yard. Also realized I have never shown the interior.